Linemen, call center workers, and other Peco employees are on strike. The roughly 1,500 unionized workers, part of IBEW local 614, officially walked off the job just after midnight, becoming the first employees to strike in Peco’s history.
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The work stoppage marks an escalation in what have been challenging negotiations between IBEW Local 614 and Peco. The union’s contract expired March 31, and both sides have accused the other of using unfair tactics.
“At 12:01, we will be on strike,” said Larry Anastasi, president of IBEW Local 614, at a Friday night news conference. “And the only thing to get us back working is for them to give the people that risk their lives so that everyone can have comfort a real contract with benefits and wages.”
Peco has a contingency plan in place, and customers shouldn’t expect delays or interruptions in service, Nicole LeVine, the company’s chief operating officer has said.
“We are committed to engaging in good-faith negotiations to reach an agreement that is fair to our employees, while supporting the long-term needs of our customers and the communities we serve,” Peco said in a statement ahead of the strike announcement. “We encourage continued dialogue and hope the union will work with us to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.”
In addition to raises and better healthcare benefits, the union wants its contract to include a uniform retirement plan for all members. Some 600 workers who were hired in recent years haven’t had a pension, while other groups have pension plans with varying terms.
Peco said on July 1, ahead of a series of bargaining days, that it had offered a nearly 20% wage increase over five years, as well as improvements to retirement and medical benefits.
In Southeastern Pennsylvania, Peco provides electricity to 1.7 million customers and natural gas to 553,000.
IBEW Local 614 said in a press release Friday that the union local representing Peco contractors and a half dozen locals representing workers for other regional utilities had directed their members not to cross the picket line.
Anastasi announced the strike just before midnight outside the Hilton Hotel at Penn’s Landing, where negotiations had been taking place earlier in the day. With a large group of union members behind him, Anastasi was asked by a reporter whether workers were supportive of the strike.
“Hey, boys, they want to know if you’re ready to strike,” the union president said, letting the group answer.
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“Yeah!” they responded in uproarious unison.
“We wish we had better news,” said Stuart Davidson, the union’s attorney.
What a strike means for Peco and its employees
Peco has said it has a contingency plan in place, which includes some workers who are familiar with the company’s specific system and others coming in from outside the region. The company has said customers should not expect delays or interruptions in service.
But utility companies sometimes encounter challenges when they bring in temporary staff from outside the region, says William Dwyer, associate teaching professor at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.
If they don’t know the area well, it takes them longer to get around, noted Dwyer, who previously worked in labor and employment relations at PSE&G in New Jersey.
Temporary workers “may not be familiar with Peco’s particular distribution network, the way that the system is designed, so there could be delays in operating based on safety concerns around that,” Dwyer said. “There’s a lot of efficiency that’s lost when you’re not dealing with your regular workforce doing the work.”
But if Peco’s contingency plan works efficiently, he says “that takes away a lot of the union’s leverage at the table.”
“They might end up accepting what they walked away from on the day of the strike,” he said.
Wages and benefits have become sticking points in the negotiations between Peco and IBEW local 614, including retirement benefits. The union wants all workers to receive a pension when they retire, all under the same terms. Currently, roughly 600 of the 1,500 union workers don’t have pensions, the union has said, and pension benefits are varied for the other 900 or so.
Utility companies started moving away from providing pensions to new hires in the 1990s, Dwyer said, leaving 401(k) as the typical retirement benefit. At Peco that happened later — the company stopped putting new hires into its pension plan in 2021, according to the union.
Peco and IBEW Local 614 now find themselves in a “high stakes,” situation, says Dwyer.
There are downsides to a strike on both sides, he says. There’s the possible “loss of efficiency” at the company, and the “after effects of a strike or a lockout could take decades to get over in terms of damage to morale and the spirit of the workforce.”
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